Ink Jet printing is a common method of non-impact printing. An ink jet printer emits intermittent streams of ink droplets from tiny nozzles in response to received electrical signals. The present invention is applicable to all types of ink jet printers.
When used in industrial applications, specifically as it pertains to the printing of text, graphics or barcodes on feed, seed or similar product bags, conventional ink jet printers suffer from a variety of drawbacks and disadvantages. For example, when an ink jet print head becomes damaged the printing process must be stopped until inventive device 100 can be restored to proper operational status. For systems that contain fixed print heads this means that that an operator has to stop an assembly line and physically disconnect an ink jet printer from its ink supply and mounting so that it can be removed for maintenance. This is a time consuming and often expensive process, both in terms of the lost production stemming from a shut down line and the maintenance costs associated with servicing the print head.
In addition to the above, it is advantageous to incorporate both feed and print mechanisms in one unit. Having separate feed and printing mechanism can cause distortion in the print quality resulting from mismatched feed and print rates. Print quality is also compromised by warping, slippage, or buckling of bag 200 by the print handler.
Moreover, print quality due to “stitching”, a condition that occurs when overlapping print nozzles are not coplanar, is often un-adjustable or, if it can be adjusted it requires special tools to do so. Stitching results in a visible gap in between print produced by multiple print heads. The advantage of an adjustment mechanism to eliminate this condition is that overall print resolution increases as well as the number of applications that the printer may be used for. For example, very course inconsistent print may be acceptable for printing bar codes on feed bags, but stitching may prevent the inclusion of fine text or graphics.
Many existing industrial printers are not designed to print on both sides of bag 200 simultaneously.
Industrial ink jet applications require specialized ink delivery systems. To overcome the shortcomings of existing ink jet industrial print systems, a customized feed mechanism and print head system is provided. The first object of the invention is to provide even and uniform transport of bag 200 through a printing system. A related object is to link the feed mechanism to a closed loop system wherein the print speed may be matched to the speed in which the transport mechanism is operating. Another object of the invention is to provide transport for print mediums, such as bag 200, of various thicknesses. It is yet another object of the invention to incorporate mechanisms that serve to eliminate stitching quickly and without the use of tools. It is still another object of the invention to enable the quick tool-less replacement of print heads. Another object of the invention is to place print accurately and repeatedly at a predetermined distance from the leading edge of bag 200. Lastly, it is an object of this invention to place print on two sides of bag 200 simultaneously.